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The best film of 2017 is Reuben Ostlund's The Square. Sometimes absurd and cartoonish, sometimes tense and foreboding, often laugh out loud funny and always thought-provoking. Not since Exit Through The Gift Shop has a film been such a loving middle finger to the art world.
I think the best movie of 2017 is Columbus from director Kogonada. Everybody should see this highly controled, mature and poetic movie reminiscent of the work of Ozu. The beauty in the ''quotidien'' (normal every day life) is touching. Futhermore, the composition of every shot is perfectly laid out for us to marvel at. There is a lyricism to Kogonada's vision that without the movement, makes me think of Malick's way of putting caracters in perspective with the world around them (here more with the architecture than nature).Kogonada is certainly someone to watch.
Olivier
(Chicago, IL)
The best film of this year (although it's technically from 1985), is Edward Yang's Taipei Story (finally receiving a proper US release). Runners-up include Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity of Madness (Sullivan Galleries, SAIC), A Quiet Passion, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, Austerlitz, Faces Places and Azazel Jacob's criminally underrated The Lovers.
Of the three named options, I would say Get Out is the best film - far more than Dunkirk, which I think is slightly overrated as an end-of-the-year Top 10 contender.
However, none of the named options are the best film of the year. Lady Bird squeaks into the Top 5, but the #1 goes to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This is a film that touches on some of the most defining elements of 2017: law enforcement / race relations, sexual abuse and misogyny women face, and the need for those on both sides of every issue to come to an understanding. Three Billboards features one of the year's best scripts with some surprising and unpredictable turns. It is, in equal measures, humorous, devastating, and touching. It is unlike anything McDonaugh has done before in film and it is his best.
I need to change my vote from other to other. My original vote was for The Florida Project, and I honestly can’t believe I’m second-guessing it. But Call Me by Your Name hit me hard. Timothée Chalamet’s is truly remarkable in a film full of standout performances both in front of and behind the camera.
I'm not much of a French film fan, but Albert Dupontel's Au Revoir Là-Haut (See You Up There : english title) was a wonderfully-made piece of film-making. Engaging characters, beautiful cinematography and some really great story telling. Dupontel also pays a subtle homage to silent film stars and more specifically Buster Keaton, mimicking his style to build visual comedy.
Call Me By Your Name and Blade Runner 2049 are masterpieces
Other is my choice, for the brilliant "A Ghost Story".
My second choice would have been other for "Blade Runner 2049".
My third choice would be other for "Good Time".
My fourth choice would be OTHER, coming in for "the Killing of a Sacred Deer".
Then fifth is Dunkirk.
What I'm saying is, bad poll options guys.
Anyways, there are tonnes of other films I need to see this year. But for me, A Ghost Story was the most original, invigorating and beautiful film of the year.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO. is the best movie I've seen so far this year.
The acting is outstanding, especially Sam Rockwell, who I know you guys enjoy. He's amazing in this film. Francis McDormand and Woody Harrelson are also excellent. A movie that adds to these heavy-weights with a supporting cast including Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes, and Peter Dinklage has got to be a great acting ensemble.
The movie is full of surprises. Things happen which you truly do not see coming but they make sense in the context of the story.
Also, characters are fully developed throughout the film. Initial impressions of characters are slowly shown to be surface impressions. Something different and surprising lies underneath in the full characterizations.
I sat mesmerized by this movie and didn't really want it to end.
2017 has been quite a year, an exhausting year, a year of resistance. The films that have truly resonated with me this past year have either cut culture open so finely and cleanly that the wound felt like revelation or they dreamed so mightily of the triumph of good over a present and palpable darkness that my heart couldn't help melting out of my body through my eyes. GET OUT would be the best film of the year for me if it had just managed to be insightful and incisive about race in America, but it also leverages genre tropes from horror and comedy so cunningly that it never fails to entertain and shock, even as it teaches. GET OUT is urgently relevant to the now of this year, a bit more so than DUNKIRK, which is a cinematic masterclass of the beginning of resistance, and far more so than LADY BIRD, which is still emotionally brilliant and deeply empathetic, just in a more timeless way, the passing of the ages and so on, these are perennial, especially that final act. That timelessness will undoubtedly help LADY BIRD in the long run, but for me, today, right now, GET OUT is the most 2017 and the best of 2017.
I've always been one to place personal significance above all else in most cases, and so I am left with no option other than Blade Runner 2049. Officer K's journey of memory and self-discovery in many ways parallels my own, especially in the way we as humans search for love. I thought it was a beautiful and poetic journey of a broken soul searching for answers and for love, who ultimately discovered that sometimes we really do have to be strangers to love someone. Blade Runner 2049 is the year's best film.
Luke Maldarella from Phoenix, Arizona.
Nathan Rabin got it right! Albert Nobbs 4 lyfe!
[ THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI ]
[ NOT GETTING ENOUGH RESPECT HERE ]
[ WHY, JOSH LARSEN? ]
Dunkirk was my second favourite movie of the year. Get Out was my third favourite movie of the year. I haven't seen Ladybird yet. This means that I had to go with Other, because my very favourite movie of the year was Baby Driver.
Please, please, please don't forget about A Ghost Story. This isn't a movie I would have watched if it hadn't been championed on this show and your sister podcast, The Next Picture Show. I have since seen it several times and have recommended to everyone I know. Nothing else has struck a chord so deeply with me this year, and while I understand why y'all picked Dunkirk, Lady Bird, and Get Out for this poll (all three are phenomenal and noteworthy films), A Ghost Story deserves a special mention for how it has challenged my view of grief, loss, and time. It was truly a spiritual experience. Hoping to see it in some top 10 lists!
I'm going with what looks to be the most popular 'Other' option and putting my vote behind "The Florida Project." Sean Baker's movie-making style is, dare I say it, revolutionary. His use of non-actors is the greatest since Vittorio de Sica's, and his films are all shot flawlessly. Whether he's walking through L.A. with an iPhone or pulling vibrant, ponderous shots of Orlando motels, Baker manages to make art that is exquisite, yet ordinary and relatable. Brooklyn Prince blew my mind, and Willem Dafoe kindly pieced it back together for me. This movie amazed me as an audience member and changed me as a person. Even though the other films on this poll are great, I couldn't have gone any other way.
Although not the grandest or even necessarily the best film of 2017. I think that I Don't Feel at Home in this World anymore deserves a notable mention this year. This existential, yet warm floaty indie pic, inclusive of a rather obnoxious Elijah Wood exhibiting the worst rat tail in cinema history executes this fusion perfectly. Two parts human companionship and one suburban crookship. It is excellently engaging and utterly convincing in its portrayal of the fear in being forgotten.
- Stina UK
If I was forced to pick any of the three options, Dunkirk would get my vote. But for me, the most satisfying movie of the year was Makoto Shinkai's anime masterpiece Your Name. While I don't know if it's the year's best film per se, what matters for my personal rankings is a combination of quality and how deeply a film's story impacted me. Such is the case with this movie, for it is not only a beautifully realized work of art with breathtaking cel animation, but an experience that just kept building and building right until it closed itself out with — at least, in my opinion — one of the most emotionally satisfying film endings in history. No other film this year has captured my heart and soul quite like this one, and I'm grateful that Makoto Shinkai decided to share this story with the world.
Stupid poll to have three choices and other. I expect better on this site.
Stupid poll to have three choices and other. I expect better on this site.
I cast my vote for Get Out largely because it is an amazing film and one of my favourites this past year... but also because I've not seen Ladybird, which hasn't hit our small town multiplex, nor Dunkirk, which I'm sure is a stunningly well made film, but about something I've no real interest in.
I considered the "Other" category... but I was split between two maximalist and minimalist choices: mother! and A Ghost Story. The former challenged and engaged all my old and rusty academic brain cells to piece together meaning behind the manic drama... and I was rewarded by several layers that will require more viewings to consider. The latter's reward was a much more emotional one, and one of pure sensory pleasure.
So, yeah, I'll toss my hat in the Get Out ring, but my head and heart remain with the other two.
Of the three options my favorite is Lady Bird, the most big-hearted, insightful, just plain brilliant coming of age film I've seen in ages. I also feel pretty confident that The Phantom Thread will end up as my favorite film of the year, since I love PTA and everything he does (Inherent Vice never happened, BTW).
But the most unforgettable experience I had at the movies this year came courtesy of David Lowery's A Ghost Story. A parable on memory and loss and grief, it did everything to my insides that I was hoping for when I went to see Personal Shopper, which I found phony and contrived (despite a home-run performance by K. Stewart). I groaned at the end of Personal Shopper. The end of A Ghost Story took my breath away.
If I’m going for most important and mind blowing, Get Out. If I’m talking about biggest surprise and what gives me the most hope for the future of cinema, LadyBird. If we’re talking cinematography and heart breakingly true to life performances, Florida Project. If I’m going for what made me laugh and cry the most and recommend the most, the big sick. But, and I’m all alone in the universe on this, if you’re asking me what the most exciting, visceral, gut wrenching, thrilling, scarf pop corn while exclaiming “holy shit!” out loud inducing kick ass time at the movies I had this year was...twice? It’s Logan. Bite me.
Personal Shopper has remained my film of the year since I saw it back in March. No other film this year is as brave with its central metaphors, connecting ghosts to both grief and our own ethereal presences online. On top of that, Kristen Stewart carries that film with an all-in performance that lets the viewer in enough to her own internal state, while at the same time not overdoing it in a way that would undercut the movie as a genuinely scary thriller. It's one of the most indescribably bizarre films I've ever seen, but it all works and I haven't been able to get it out of my head ever since.
Commenting from Kansas City, MO
Here are some films I haven't seen yet: Phantom Thread, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Happy End, Lady Bird, Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water, and many more. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those ends up being my favorite of 2017, but for now I'll stick with my choice from the poll earlier this year: Terrence Malick's Song to Song. I may be totally alone on this, and I'm ok with that. Other favorites so far are Good Time, Personal Shopper, and The Beguiled.
It's The Florida Project! That is, until I finally have an opportunity to see Phantom Thread and Call Me By Your Name. We'll see.
My most anticipated films of the year were Dunkirk, I.T, Logan, Wind river and Star wars the last Jedi. While the first four never let me down and were all fantastic films for the cinema. I'm going to have to go for ( even though I've not seen it yet) star wars. The buzz and the fact Rian Johnson is directing and has already been trusted to make a full New trilogy suggests this will no doubt be the cinema experience of the year.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is the film of the year. An original story of suffering, anger and vengeance. Frances McDormand gives the performance of a lifetime. And it is a credit to the script and directing that we are rooting for someone, who objectively isn't a nice (to say the least). And it has a superb cast--Sam Rockwell is amazing and his character has a great arc. Woodey Harrelson is wonderful in a role where you expect him to be the villain, but he is something else entirely. And the story is wonderful in not tipping you off on where it is going, but not cheating you. We need some billboards on the Kennedy Expressway so that you guys will recognize your oversight in not including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri .
I actually loved all three of your options, especially Lady Bird, but The Florida Project is my easiest “best of the year” pick in years. It is a reminder of how powerful and moving films can be. The pacing is extraordinary. Through the early leisure, we are made to love these characters so deeply that when their vulnerability and pain are exposed, it inspires emotion as raw as any I have felt at the movies in a long time.
When Call Me By Your Name opens up by me, I may beg you to open the polls back up, but for now, it’s The Florida Project.
By the way, there’s a good chance I would not have seen The Florida Project in theaters if I hadn’t seen Tangerine. And there’s a very good chance I wouldn’t have seen Tangerine if I wasn’t a Filmspotting fan. These year-end “best of” lists, and especially your Golden Brick discussions, are tremendously effective, and I’m tremendously grateful.
I'm sort of bewildered that Get Out isn't being heralded as both the most important and best film of the year amongst avid filmgoers. No other film this year has so delicately yet provocatively challenged and rewarded viewers. Jordan Peele structures the inner details of this genre-bending work masterfully and creates an experience that shocks you with its horror and then reminds you that the warning signs were there all along. Coupled with these fascinating ideas, it's got acting, cinematography, writing, and directing as good as any I've seen this year. My number one spot, for sure.
The Florida Project is the film I connected most with this year. I absolutely love how Sean Baker straddles the line between fiction and non fiction. Based on real people in a real area of Florida portraying a very real issue, but this story is one that could only have been told fictionally. Baker captures childhood wonder, through the eyes of Mooney, like I've never seen before.
For to see this world through Mooney's eyes is to view it from a distance. Michal Chabon, while writing about Wes Anderson and the themes of grief that are explored in that director's films, theorized that grief is too powerful an emotion to understand at full scale. But by distancing ourselves allows us to see it whole and better understand it. This idea I feel applies to the world of The Florida Project as seen through the distance of Mooney's POV. This creates a deep sense of irony that persists through the film. It's an absolute joy to follow Mooney on her adventures, she treats the world of the motels as her personal playground. But we know that what she sees as her playground is actually a broken system, and that many of it's inhabitants are in dire situations. It's an odd dichotomy falling in love with these characters and wanting to spend more time in their world, while being grateful that I've never actually had to.
I liked Get Out, and to a lesser degree, Dunkirk (I have not seen Lady Bird-I find Greta Gerwig...annoying), but my favorite movie of the year is Kedi (which may not count as it was made in 2016 I believe?), but it did come to my local theater in 2017. For these interesting times we live in, Kedi had me leaving the theater feeling great about humanity and our capacity for caring. All of the stories of the various cats and their humans were fantastic.
Like every year, I have to to click "Other". This year my vote goes to "The Square". Although there's still plenty of movies from this year that I have to see.
I am going to throw a wildcard in here and say... Silence was the best movie of 2017. I know, I know - you'll say, "it was a 2016 movie!" But consider some of the most lauded movies of 2017: Lady Bird, The Florida Project, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water and The Post - none of these will arrive on my shores until 2018. So instead of comprising, and picking a movie from an incomplete field, I am going to go back and reclaim a movie that was similarly unavailable to me this time last year.
And of all the movies that were theatrically available to me across 2017 (by Australian release), Silence was truly the best. It was released in February, and over the ensuring ten months, only a handful of movies came close to topping it , yet nothing ever did.
Some might call it slow, because it was, but it was never boring. Beyond being a staggering exploration on the hardships of what it meant to have faith in a dangerous time and land, it was an assured piece of work from a master filmmaker who knows how to hone total control over the rhythm and texture of a film. Plus it gave Liam Neeson one last shot at showing the world that he has more to offer the world other than various Taken sequels and knockoffs.
As a consolation, I'll nominate the Safdie brothers' Good Time as a runner-up and the best actual 2017 movie of 2017. Kind of the complete of Silence in style, it was a heart-pounding, exhilarating, neon-lit nightmarish ride from start to finish. The kind of movie that you won't forget any time soon because it burns its images in to your brain.
Lady Bird and Get Out are runners up for me (both top 5 or 6 in a surprisingly good movie year), but Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri easily surpasses them. While maybe not at the level of In Bruges or his brother's Calvary, McDonagh made a movie that does not pretend that things are less complicated than they are. As in McDonagh's (and his brother's) other films the tonal shifts would be jarring if the characters weren't as well drawn and acted as they are. McDormand and Rockwell particularly stand out, but the whole cast is great. It's a film that allows nuance in a year that seems devoid of it. Not to mention it's one of the funniest movies of 2017:
"Penelope said begets?" gets my vote for line of the year.
Dunkirk is not bad by any estimation , but does not belong in the same sentence as Ebbing or the other two nominees. There are at least a dozen better films than it out this year.
I voted 'other.' I am going to be the philistine in the group and say my favorite film of 2017 (so far) was 'Wonder Woman.' I rewatched it recently and had tears streaming down my face during the island training and battle scenes and then again as Wonder Woman charged from the World War I trenches. Much of the film is thrilling, inspiring, gorgeous film-making.
I also really enjoyed your three offerings. Of the three, I'd say 'Get Out' was my favorite because it was exquisitely crafted to tell a darkly comic horror story. I haven't seen 'Florida Project' yet but I suspect it would rank very near No. 1 for me.
Why is Mother! so overlooked or dismissed? Aronofsky’s latest is by far the best film of the year. It tells a story that could only be told on film, and it’s ambiguous enough to last for generations. The marriage of text and subtext in film is a delicate balance that Mother! manipulates so deftly in the audience that it’s initially off-putting. It’s not that the film is saying it’s smarter than the audience, it’s that the film is inviting the audience to be an active member of its game. Stand up for posterity, Filmspotting, and declare Mother! the FILM of the year. Imagine if this were a Golden Brick contender, you’d champion it to the bitter end. None of the options presented respectfully challenge the audience the way Mother! does. Dunkirk is an amusement park ride at a history museum. Get Out is Ira Levine meets Alfred Hitchcock. And Lady Bird is a very special episode of Degrassi High. Mother! is dangerous and thrilling and the best film of the year.
I don't think I realized how much I loved Lady Bird until I was forced by this list to reckon with the fact that I liked it better than Dunkirk... and I saw the true IMAX Dunkirk experience. Don't get me wrong, that experience, which was my second viewing, was stunning in almost every way I can imagine. It's a nearly perfect movie and seeing it on that big of a screen shook me (literally). But the truth is that despite its "smallness," Lady Bird hit me on a different level. I hesitate to say deeper... but whatever, I'll say it. It hit me on a deeper level.
Even as I write this I feel like it's unfair to compare the two films because of how shockingly different they are. Throw Get Out into the mix, a wonderful film which on a different chilly morning might have taken my #1 spot, and you've got three absolutely terrific films that also couldn't be more different in the way that they explore and exploit the tools of cinema. It feels like the only thing these films have in common is that they were made with a camera.
Anyway, at the time of this post "other" is leading the pack, but take heart Adam and Josh! It was a good preliminary list. What it lacked in breadth, it made up for in its ability to shake me out of my "obviously Dunkirk" malaise.
Keep up the good work!
In a fairly abysmal year for big budget films, with the studios pumping out CGI-ridden mediocrity with assembly line efficiency, DUNKIRK reinvigorated my love of big movies. DUNKIRK basks in its sheer size, from the massive army stranded on the beach, to the vast expanses of the ocean and sky, to the 65mm negative, and the huge IMAX screen and aspect ratio. I have not seen a studio film so unapologetically sure of itself in a long time. It felt as much about filmmaking itself as it did about the rescue at Dunkirk and it reminded me why I love going to the movies.
Pat from Oxford, UK: I voted Other (for the wonderful The Florida Project) because Lady Bird hasn't been released here in UK yet, and I'm so keen to see it after everything I've heard. Of the other two choices - I would have voted for Dunkirk, as a visceral immersive cinematic experience, and recalling Christopher Nolan's answer to the question of why there hasn't been a film about this before: because it's a British story, moreover it's about a defeat, and it needed American money to make it happen. Nolan must be the only British director who can command that kind of money. The Florida Project is a great next feature after the brilliant Tangerine - both movies do something with material and film style that you don't really see anywhere else, and that's what I like when I go to the movies.
With many films still unseen I can only offer a limited opinion but so far this year has been a tug of war between The Beguiled and Personal Shopper. Nevertheless, I'd like to leave some room at the top for Phantom Thread and Call Me By Your Name which I am highly anticipating.
"The Florida Project." Between it and "Tangerine," Sean Baker has shown an unrivaled skill in finding the rainbows within characters and locations most movies - heck, most of society - won't go near. Pointed, but not preachy. Brutally honest, yet open-hearted. Choosing any other film this year? "You're a disgrace!" (He says through giggles.)
While I would love to pick such great films as Logan, The Big Sick, Mudbound, or Blade Runner 2049; nothing has left quite the impact on me Wind River did. Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut is nothing short of haunting. The story is wholly engaging to the point that I could feel the chill of the snow-covered Wyoming plains and was almost moved to tears with the film’s resolution. Renner’s stone cold performance is riveting, as is Gil Birmingham’s quiet devastation. On top of all this, it provides three of the strongest scenes of the year: those being the inciting incident, the resolution of it, and the movie’s final chilling moments. While I have yet to rewatch it, the depressive mist hanging over many characters impacted me enough to where I feel like it will never leave me. It truly is the best film of the year and it is a travesty that more awards groups don’t pick it up partially because of the horrible quality of those behind the scenes. All that considered, it’s the film that hasn’t left my thoughts all year and one I look forward to once the dread of its real life tragedies are long behind.
The Disaster Artist!!!
It's about human behaviour.
I didn't watch as many movies this year compared to previous years. My most anticipated movies were Wind River and The Florida Project. My vote stands with Wind River.
As of now my favorite hands down is David Lowry's "A Ghost Story." I am still playing catch up with a ton a movies from 2017, but Lowry's film has stuck with me since I watched it. The whole time thing may not work, but it is such a beautiful film with a lot of depth. Really want to see Lady Bird.
This poll question would usually be extremely hard to answer, but that is not the case for this year. Kogonada's Columbus is by far my favorite movie of the year, and in my opinion, also the best of the year. I rarely feel such a profound connection to the characters as I have with this film. I would give anything to spend more time with both Jin and Casey in this beautiful town full of masterful architecture. Kogonada did an outstanding job of giving me a sense of atmosphere and depth in this film that I have maybe never experienced so strongly. I am still spellbound by Columbus after seeing it over two and a half months ago and I honestly hope that I never get over that feeling.
Keep making new iterations of Best o' 2017 Lists; keep putting Dunkirk at the top, despite my feeble attempts to do otherwise. Maybe this will be one of those "experience" movies that fades with time, but - at least for the moment - Dunkirk's ability to make the past feel like the pulse-pounding present (with a capital P) earns it the number one spot for me.
Also, what Jaws was for water, Dunkirk will be for the sound of airplanes over head.
It's a good dilemma to be in when there is a wealth of great films, like the ones listed above and also including Good Time, Lucky, Faces Places, In the Fade, Call Me By Your Name and The Other Side of Hope, but Sean Baker's third feature is the one that did it for me. It has a deft combination of bringing gravity to the lives of its' characters but never ends up feeling like poverty porn. The move to film from iPhone on Tangerine shows that Baker and his collaborators are not just trying to tell stories with rich characters. There's a sophistication to the visuals that surpasses anything I've sen this year.